External drive DIED :-0

Vauxmad · 29 Aug 2008 at 12:53

Im not having much luck this week. After trying to install vista on my newly upgraded machine and it having none of it i have just tried to access my external drive which has all my files backed up on to.

Windows tells me that the drive needs formatting and obvisouly i havent as this would be a bad thing.

I have downloaded testdisk and ran that on the drive and it can still see the partition but the drive is saying its only 69gig so cant restore the 500gig partion.

Anybody got any ideas on how to fix this?

bledd · 29 Aug 2008 at 14:03

hmm

try plugging it in internally and testdisk on it again

helmutcheese · 30 Aug 2008 at 04:50

My 500GB My Book died.

Recovery software did not work as its Physical damage after it starting clunking.

I had 100GB backed up on it.

I Froze it in a Freezer for 8 hours at a time (inside Ziplock Bag containing Reactivated Silica Gel) and got 15mins running out it each time, as soon as it warmed up again it would not read, and give errors like claiming my folders were empty etc.

Windows could see it sometimes and not others.

I repeated this till I got ALL my data back.

Undesirable · 30 Aug 2008 at 05:36

This is why I keep all essential data synchronised, or inside an encrypted container on a second drive.

The best idea for simple home backups is to have one large internal and one large external drive. Make a secondary back up once a week on the external drive and then turn it off and store it somewhere safe until the next week. Defrag the internal drive weekly, but don't defrag the external drive. Run weekly SMART status and CHKDSK scans. If one of the drives fail, do not access the back-up drive until the defective drive has been replaced and you are ready to restore the backup.

helmutcheese · 30 Aug 2008 at 15:22

That was my "Back Up", now I will have 2 backups.

I do not normally get stung as all my stuff in internally on the PC and same on the backup and same on a old big HDD I keep in drawer.

Due to what I'm doing now on PC temp (beta testing etc), I have none of my DATA on it internally, and the old HDD in the drawer has not been updated since Jan 08 so it was all down to the "My Book".

I do know how to run a backup etc but at times we all get caught short sometimes and at the end of the day I have never had a HDD actually totally die and not work from another PC or Recovery software.

The "My Book" was the 1st and its obv as it must run hot inside that housing as I have now seen inside it and its a joke TBH.

Nvidia Mobo drivers in Vista have broken SMART so that's also an issue.

At the end of the day, I had the knowledge to get my DATA back and I will not make same mistake twice.